Sessions at West 54th Interview

Interviewer: Chris Douridas
September 1997 (aired Dec 1997)

Thanks to Stevik for the date details.

CD: Jane Siberry. Are you excited about the show tonight?

JS: Oh, yeah, I always feel excited to play. 'Cause you
never know if you're going to succeed or fail. You never know if you're
going to fly or crash. But, no, I was at Joe Jackson's taping last night,
so I have an idea of what it's going to be like. And it was a great crew,
and it was really fun. So, I think tonight'll be fun.

CD: It's kind of like diving off without a net. Giving
into the experience...

JS: Are you talking about surrender?

CD: Surrendering, yeah.

JS: Ah. No, tonight there's a lot of things to control,
actually. Control. As in, you're working with five cameras, and I can't
do my walking thing necessarily the same way I would. There's a different
awareness that will be there tonight. And then the surrender thing is,
well, at a certain point you just let go and see.

CD: Is there any kind of preparation you do before the
show to get yourself in the moment?

JS: What makes you think being in the moment is what you
want? I'm sorry, but, Chris, you're speaking to someone who will inspect
every single word you use with me.

CD: (laughs)

JS: I'm very literal. But you are right...

CD: Yeah, to approach it in a certain way, whatever that
may be.

JS: Well, someone asked me yesterday, what's your advice
for when you have the blues? And I said, I like to hang out with children.
It's that children won't let you cast yourself forward and backwards into
future troubles and past worries. You have to stay in the moment, and
that's where you cheer up. And that's where you get energy. So, the goal
tonight is to be in the moment. And so what do I do to keep in the moment,
to be in the moment? Especially if you're worrying a little bit. I am
a bit of a worry wart. I have some yoga background, so I stretch and I
do some breathing, and I warm up my voice. And I don't let anybody look
in my mirror once I start putting on my makeup, no one's face can move
into my mirror.

CD: Like literally into your mirror?

JS: Yeah.

CD: Seriously? Wow.

JS: I learned that on tour with five women, that that's
what I need. And I pray. I try to remember why I'm doing it, so that I
don't get in my own way. And then I usually call my mom if there's a line
out in my dressing room.

CD: She's in Toronto?

JS: She is sometimes.

CD: That's fantastic. It's sort of a grounding thing?

JS: That's exactly what it is. You try to ground yourself.
I try to ground myself. Well, Chris, I can ask you now, since you've gone
from behind the microphone to on screen, which is a very difficult thing
to do...

CD: Yes...

JS: How do you ground yourself? I mean you must notice
when you look at rushes how you look when you're un-grounded.

CD: I call my mom a lot, too. (laughs) Actually, that's
kind of funny. That's one thing we have in common. Yeah, I'm still figuring
it out. I mean you've got a lot of experience at the performance, the
presentation thing, and it's just a different thing for me. I'm still
finding it, I think. Figuring it out.

JS: Oh, yeah, it takes a long time. It took -- like when
I wrote songs I was just a songwriter, and I only was a singer because
I was writing songs, somebody had to sing it. And then ten years later
I have to know how to read in still photographs, then I have to know how
to let my energy read in the moving picture, I have to learn about my
body so that I read movement-wise. So many things I never thought I'd
have to learn, but all of it goes back to the pot of soup called moi,
or trois, that ultimately works to your advantage on all levels, learning
about these things through our career or whatever you want to call it.
So I haven't seen the show yet, but do you read very well?

CD: I'm a bad judge of that. I'm not sure, I don't know.

JS: Well, when you see someone else on screen, like this
is a double interview, you must have always a reference point. You look
back and forth and ask "Why is her countenance reflecting more light
than mine," or whatever?

CD: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And for me it's interesting that
we're presenting musicians in an environment that we don't necessarily
get to see them in very often. You listen to them on record, you have
them in your headphones, you have them in your homes, they become such
an intimate part of your world, and then to see them presented on the
show, you know, it's kind of an illuminating thing.

JS: Yeah, yeah.

CD: For me especially because I'm coming from a radio background.
Anyway, you referred to praying before a performance...

JS: I prey on small children and helpless waiters is what
I meant.

CD: (laughs)

JS: She said, backtracking, in case you're going to talk
about something spiritual.

CD: I was going to head that way, yeah, because I know
you said to me before that songs are like prayers for you. That there's
a prayer aspect in the performance as well.

JS: Always two. Yeah, so I always feel like I'm talking
to somebody. I like that Hindu expression, "the guest is God."
Or -- what is it? -- I honor the divine within you, and that's who you're
speaking to is people's souls or whatever. Life's so short, I think that's
a great idea. Do you?

CD: That's a rare gift, though, to be able to make that
connection to other people's souls. You can do that with painting. There
are painters that have that capacity. I guess it's true for any art form,
I would think. A true art form. Maybe it's one of the definitions of true
art.

JS: Uh-oh, you're getting awfully deep.

CD: Do you know what I mean, though? I say this 'cause
I had a fascinating experience the other day. You know, it's kind of embarrassing
to point out how simple it is. Just the other day, I had a day off from
the studio and I went down to the Museum of Modern Art. Just walking through
there, and I was stopped by a row of Picassos. And just seeing the power
of the work, no matter what you think of Picasso, just the work itself,
and the force that was in that room was so palpable.

JS: I sometimes think it would be great to have a job in
an art gallery, late shift security. I mean, to be in the gallery and
to actually experiment turning off the lights so that you're in the dark
in the same room with these masterpieces, and see if you can still feel
them. I'm sure you can. I'm sure it's super-charged, whether there's light
reflecting from it or not. That's a good job, I think. Better than a toll
booth, you know, outside of the tunnel or whatever, don't you think?

CD: But there's also another aspect of the experience.
When you're there on a crowded Sunday afternoon and there's 40 people
standing with you in front of one of these powerful works...

JS: Yeah. And that makes me feel a powerful anger.

CD: Powerful anger? Why?

JS: Well, it's harder to see. It's harder to see the painting
if there's 40 people standing in front.

CD: (laughs)

JS: Whatever.

CD: All right, given the fact that everybody sort of finds
their place, the tall ones are in the back, the short ones are in the
front -- I was up front, of course, because I'm of lesser physical stature.
But collective appreciation of the moment is what I'm talking about, which
happens in live performance.

JS: Yeah, live. Or looking at a painting together. Yep,
it's true. That when one or more are gathered, it exaggerates itself.

CD: Were you ever a painter?

JS: No.

CD: 'Cause people have described your work as sort of paintings.

JS: Yeah. Only painterly types say that. I mean no one
can say that about my work unless they're visual, right?

CD: Yeah, I guess so.

JS: So they're describing themselves. But it's true, if
I can't see something I can't do it, and that's not just music. If I can't
see what I'm going to have for dinner I won't eat. I'm led by my nose.
You know what I mean.

CD: You're losing me. (Laughs) If you can't see what you're
going to have for dinner you don't want to eat?

JS: I can't do it. It's how I create. My eyes see it and
then the rest of me goes along as an aside. Accidentally. As soon as I
see it it's almost done.

CD: Wow.

JS: Which is why it's good I don't have a lot of money.
I would be going like this the whole time, and I wouldn't get any work
done. Isn't that a contradiction? Maybe it is.

CD: Yeah. (Laughs) I was just trying to imagine you as
a little girl. What it must've been like -- a little Jane.

JS: Well, talk to me in 20 years, I feel like I'm getting
younger all the time.

CD: Really?

JS: I do, yeah.

CD: In what way?

JS: I have way more energy, I'm way lighter, I don't know
what I was carrying for so long. I don't know what it is. I just feel
like that at 21 I was really old. When I was little, kids used to fantasize
about fairies and stuff. I used to fantasize about cranes carrying me
from place to place so I didn't have to move. But I think that might've
been the sugar I ate. I ate a lot of sugar. I think a lot of kids eat
sugar. We must've spent our childhood in a stupor, a depressed stupor
most of our childhoods.

CD: But in your twenties you felt weighted down, you felt...?

JS: Yeah, heavy, heavy. But now I've done a lot of work
on myself. You know, as simple as learning about diet. Starting to have
self-knowledge has been an enlightening thing.

CD: Plus you've taken a lot of control over your life.
Your own record label now...you've sort of become, I don't know, empowered
in a way, 'cause you're really doing it all yourself, for the most part,
right?

JS: Yeah. That's a great thing. It's a lot of fun, too.
To take responsibility for your nose dive or success or whatever. It's
sort of interesting. I'm very happy to be where I am. Very happy.

CD: The stuff we're hearing tonight, is there some new
music you're doing tonight?

JS: There's a couple of new songs. I'm about at the end
of these songs, so I'm glad we're capturing them on your show, and then
that's it. I feel I've repeated myself more than I normally do. With Rebecca
Campbell and David Travers and Tim Wright, it's been a wonderful ride
with them. I feel it's coming to an end.

CD: Hmm. So a change is in order?

JS: I think so. I think I'd like to go back to my bedroom
and just write songs on guitar now for a while. I've been too expanded.
I'm ready to simplify a bit more.

CD: Yeah. So it's time to sort of cocoon a little?

JS: Yeah, maybe.

CD: The songs seem to have a life span where you'll carry
them around for a while and then let them go.

JS: No, it's more of the repetition factor. I feel like
I'm repeating myself too much. But I'm touring more and playing to different
people, so I'm not repeating myself to the same people, but within me
I feel a bit fake. Which doesn't mean the songs won't be fresh and alive
tonight. They will be like right to the end.

CD: Are you living in New York still?

JS: My belongings are in storage here. So I'm back in Toronto
for a while until I can come back. Every now and then I sort of fondle
my storage room key and feel homesick.

CD: Do you like living in New York?

JS: Yeah, I do.

CD: What kind of effect has it had on you?

JS: Well, I'm a bit nervous about tonight. I'm not the
person who normally lives in New York and can argue back with checkout
people. I can tell I feel a bit quiet tonight. But I got into so many
fights the first couple months when I moved here because I think I was
being called on my mumbling, or not being committed to what I said. There's
a way of inhaling when you speak, which I do sometimes. So people have
to lean forward. And then they say, what do you want? And I sort of burned
off a bit of that kind of flab when I was living here.

CD: (laughs) Interesting, yeah.

JS: But New York is very vital, very sexy, sensuous. There's
a reason that people have gravitated here from all over the world for
years. And it's hard to put into words for anybody, I think, but I feel
it, too. I think it's been a good teacher for me, a good place for me
to be. What about you?

CD: I think it's great. You have to build some muscle.
It's true. It's invigorating because of that. And it's almost like people
are sort of elbowing in and trying to, you know -- it's like you're becoming
part of machinery that makes this city work somehow. But you've probably
learned a lot about Canadians by being in New York.

JS: Why?

CD: Well, because it gives you a reflection of yourself
somehow.

JS: Well, you know, when I go back to Toronto, it feels
very soft there. Like people have to burn off a bit of stuff.

CD: One more thing. How do you know when the music is where
you want it to be in performance and on record? Is there a sensation?

JS: Oh, yeah, yeah. I think I, like a lot of other people,
use my body like a tuning fork. And until it's right, your gut won't relax.
It's that simple. And when it's right, your system, much beyond your conscious
mind, will let you know. And a lot of people just listen to their bodies.
Which is why, when you go to a studio to work, and they have M&M's and
shit like that, it's like -- that's like stuffing toilet paper in the
telephone.

CD: Or something like that. (Laughs) I get your point.

JS: People working hard, like even on your film set here,
there's lots of sugar. When we work in a studio, when people's hands reach
out we try to make sure it's vegetable juices Because if there's sugar
there, everyone will take the sugar. 'Cause no one has any control when
you're working hard. But then you'll mess your system up. Your tuning
fork will get all covered with crap. (Laughs) Corroded.

CD: Well, when that tuning fork, to carry the analogy,
when it's singing, when it's humming, when the gut is relaxed, as you
say, is there a confidence that sets in that the audience is feeling too?

JS: Absolutely. Absolutely. I use the audience's bodies
too when I'm playing. We all do. I think all musicians do. That's why
it's important to stay open and why we have wild cards, so we stay unlocked.
Because we get more out of it, too. I want to end with a quote that my
singing teacher told me. A quote from my singing teacher. He said, "As
soon as the opera singer starts to cry the audience stops crying."
And that's what music's all about. To me that says it all. That's when
music is on the common table and in its best, most miraculous form, you
know?

CD: As soon as the...?

JS: When the music is on the common table, when it's not
too personal, when it will sit in a neutral way on the common table to
be partaken of. As soon as the opera singer starts crying she can't hear
the audience anymore, the edge of the stage just moved way back, and the
audience is far away.